WNC Headlines Edition

What’s on the 7/17/18 Council agenda: Effort to trample property rights and kill planned affordable housing resurrects, and regs and taxes of scooters.

Posted at 6:15 on July 15, 2018 by noreply@blogger.com Rod Williams
By Rod Williams – The most important item on this agenda is Bill BL2016-219  on Third Reading which is the bill to ...
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NATO’s global peace is unraveling and we can’t see it

Posted at 4:17 on July 15, 2018 by Robert Kagan
By Robert Kagan Human beings often choose self-delusion over painful reality, and so in the days and weeks to come, we will hear reassurances that the NATO alliance is in good shape. After all, there have been spats in the past—over the Suez crisis in 1956, ...

Missouri’s teen marriage law is a fair compromise

Posted at 3:45 on July 15, 2018 by Jazz Shaw
Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed a new bill into law this week which alters the state’s requirements for marriages involving children under the age of 16. Critics hoping for a more restrictive cutoff may see it as only trimming around the edges of a very real problem, but the state was also at r...

Nunes on the indictments

Posted at 2:15 on July 15, 2018 by Scott Johnson
(Scott Johnson) I posted the indictments obtained against 12 Russian military intelligence officers by the Special Counsel this past Friday here. This morning Maria Bartiromo interviewed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes about the indictments (video below). Nunes cited the March 22 Intelligence Committee ...

DiFi in the WiFi Era

Posted at 1:15 on July 15, 2018 by Steven Hayward
(Steven Hayward) We noted here the other day that California Senator Dianne Feinstein could be facing a tough race in November from a candidate to her left, State. Sen. Kevin de Leon, and this will make her ratchet up her antics in the forthcoming confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. (Feinstein is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so the pressure is on.) Last nigh...

Trump’s opportunity at the Putin summit

Posted at 12:45 on July 15, 2018 by Jazz Shaw
President Trump is on his way to Helsinki, Finland for his one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The negative media hype over this summit (if we can really consider it a summit when the two leaders have already met twice) is off the charts, but it’s not entirely unwarranted. The...

Walk of faith: Sunday reflection

Posted at 12:00 on July 15, 2018 by Ed Morrissey
This morning’s Gospel reading is Mark 6:7–13: Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick— no food, no sack, no money in their belts....

Gender Follies at the University of Minnesota

Posted at 11:15 on July 15, 2018 by John Hinderaker
(John Hinderaker) The University of Minnesota has published in draft form a new “gender identity” policy. The Star Tribune headlines: “He, she or ze? Pronouns could pose trouble under University of Minnesota campus policy.” Using the wrong pronoun could turn into a firing offense at the University of Minnesota. The U is conside...

California shocker: Democrats deny Feinstein endorsement

Posted at 9:45 on July 15, 2018 by Jazz Shaw
This November, California Senator Dianne Feinstein will be running for a fifth full term in the upper chamber, capping off a career on the public payroll dating back to her time as Municipal Supervisor of San Francisco back in 1970. She’ll be facing fellow Democrat Kevin de León, who she bested by a...

Kamala Harris, fabulist

Posted at 11:30 on July 14, 2018 by Paul Mirengoff
(Paul Mirengoff) On July 9, Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted: Two decades after Brown v. Board, I was only the second class to integrate at Berkeley public schools. Without that decision, I likely would not have become a lawyer and...

Robert Mueller, the dispensable man

Posted at 11:00 on July 14, 2018 by Paul Mirengoff
(Paul Mirengoff) Yesterday, Robert Mueler indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers in connection with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign. Assuming the indictments are well-founded, a reasonable assumption, they are a welcome development, though it seems highly unlikely that any of the 12 will ever appear in court. T...

Report: Post-Freddie Gray, Baltimore police backed off from crime

Posted at 8:45 on July 14, 2018 by Jazz Shaw
We’ve written here at length about the skyrocketing murder and gun crime rates in Baltimore over the past few years and the various measures which have been proposed to combat the problem. But lost in much of this debate is the question of how things got this bad and when it all began going off...

Melania Trump wows Europe with style, soft diplomacy

Posted at 7:15 on July 14, 2018 by Karen Townsend
By all appearances, First Lady Melania Trump has bounced back nicely from her recent kidney surgery and a rather lengthy recovery. While Trump critics in the media enjoyed some rather silly speculation because she was not in the spotlight as she recovered, Mrs. Trump left no dou...

Democratic Socialism in One Poster

Posted at 6:30 on July 14, 2018 by Steven Hayward
(Steven Hayward) Have you heard? Democratic socialism is the bright new future. New and improved! Not like that old kind of socialism that produced gulags, corrupt governments, and mediocre economies. It’s kindler, gentler socialism, all warm and fuzzy and friendly. And . . . oh, wait: ...

Report: White House cancels John Bolton interview with CNN after Trump criticized network at presser

Posted at 5:45 on July 14, 2018 by Allahpundit
I agree with Jonathan Swan. The most interesting thing about this is the fact that someone close to Bolton wanted CNN to know that it wasn’t his decision. Not everyone in the West Wing enjoys playing the “fake news” game ...

Diane Black wins Nashville GOP picnic straw poll

Posted at 4:15 on July 14, 2018 by noreply@blogger.com Rod Williams
The Davidson County Republican Party picnic was today, Saturday July 14th, at the Centennial Park event shelter. It returned to Centennial Park this year after being held elsewhere for the last few years. This was a real picnic, with barbecue and all the fixings from Whitt’s barbecue and it was a bargain at only $10 a person. About 300 people were in attendance. It was great to see people I had not seen in a while. The shelter and nearby grounds were doted with campaign signs of ...

Awww: Chevron Shakedown lawyer in search for new career

Posted at 2:45 on July 14, 2018 by Ed Morrissey
It didn’t get the headlines that Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump got this week. Heck, it didn’t even get the headlines that Steve Donziger used to get earlier in his career, after the attorney scored a $8.6 billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador. On Tuesday, though, the state of New York ...

Papa John: You know, I was pressured into using the n-word

Posted at 1:15 on July 14, 2018 by Jazz Shaw
As I said on Thursday, when the end finally came for Papa John’s Chairman John Schnatter, it certainly came quickly. During an online conference call which was ironically designed to prevent future public relations debacles f...

2018 and the rise of the “meh” voters

Posted at 11:45 on July 14, 2018 by Jazz Shaw
Is it a blue wave? Or maybe a red wave? It’s too soon to tell, but one thing you may be sure of is that people on both sides of the aisle are fired up and ready to charge out to the polls this November in a showdown over President Trump’s policies and the very future of the soul of America...

Yes, Russia is a threat to NATO. So are the alliance’s anti-democratic members.

Posted at 10:17 on July 14, 2018 by Norman Eisen James Kirchick
By Norman Eisen, James Kirchick As Western leaders gather in Brussels this week for their annual NATO summit, the Atlantic alliance faces a daunting ...